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They Shall Not Grow Old

Peter Jackson, best known for directing The Lord of the Rings trilogy, has created a new film using original footage from Imperial War Museumsí extensive archive, much of it previously unseen, alongside BBC and IWM interviews with servicemen who fought in the conflict.

Footage has been colourised, converted to 3D and transformed with modern production techniques to present never before seen detail.

Re: They Shall Not Grow Old

Phew! That colour brings those faces right into our time, whereas monochrome keeps them so distant. I must book for this film, I keep searching faces when I see such old stock - though he never told me, my dad was wounded on the Somme, by a shell I've discovered. I once asked him why he had a bump on his head -- his answer was, 'Got thrown by my horse'. The Etaples hospital record shows 'gunshot wounds - damaged knees and wrists, with shrapnel to head'. He was a wagon driver with the artillery. Once recovered he was sent to Salonika to face the Bulgars -- then he was repeatedly in hospital with dysentary and malaria. I've had a cushy life compared to him. When he saw me off to my first ship, he warned me to watch out for Biscay because he'd spent his time on the transport in Biscay down below, cleaning up after vomiting horses. The only other snippet he gave out was: 'in Salonika the rocks were so hot we fried our eggs on them'.
Thank you for posting, Keith.

Re: They Shall Not Grow Old

My grandfather was a dispatch rider during WW1. He went away as a dark haired boy of 18 and returned as a white haired man of 23. My grandmother told me his hair changed color due to the terrible things he saw while delivering messages from HQ to the front-lines.